Why Aren’t Users Engaging?

If your funnel metrics reveal low uptake or drop-off, a process evaluation (PE, see primer here) can diagnose the cause and inform product iteration before progressing to Level 3.

A process evaluation at this stage interrogates the assumptions in your theory of change about the user: what they know, what they can do, and what conditions need to be in place for them to engage as intended.

Funnel stage
Example PE questions
Methods

Acquisition

Are the onboarding and recruitment processes delivering users to the product in ways that set up meaningful engagement — or are early frictions in the program's delivery model creating drop-off before users have a fair chance to engage?

Key informant interviews; administrative data on recruitment or referral sources

Engagement & Retention

What barriers (e.g. literacy demands, connectivity constraints, or social and structural limits on device access) are preventing the hardest-to-reach users from progressing through the funnel?

Interviews, focus groups, and/or surveys with non-adopters and early lapsed users from underserved subgroups

Document what product changes are made in response, and re-run the relevant funnel metrics afterward to confirm the bottleneck has been resolved.


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